Beer adventures

My #craftbeer challenge for last year was “never drink the same beer twice”. Even here in San Diego, that wasn’t quite possible. But I tried.

I ended up with “never the same beer twice in a row”, at least.

San Diego is arguably the (a?) craft brew capital of the US. It’s the epicenter of a movement that combines old-world craftsmanship, tradition, experimentation, sustainability and “slow” (locally sourced) food. There are lots of beer choices here, but unless you are willing to visit all (150+) of the local breweries, brewpubs and beer bars, you are just going to have to repeat once in a while.

As part of our “beer tourism” last year, we also visited Denver, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Santa Monica, Tucson, Seattle, Liverpool, London, Amsterdam and Tokyo. Not that we picked the locations because of the beer, but as long as we were there, we figured we might as well check out the local craft brew scene 🙂

Craft beer is now big business, $34 billion industry (US), and $4.7 billion in California alone. That’s why the “corporate yellow fizzy water” companies are trying to convince you that they “are craft”. Really, Budweiser? Really, MillerCoors? This new “we’re small and cool and don’t suck even though our beer has for decades” marketing from the big companies has been labeled “craftwashing” by some, such as Greg Koch of Stone Brewing.

Fortunately, at least 20% of those brews were the 4 oz taster size! Otherwise that would have been 41 gallons (158 liters) of cool frosty beverage! That’s about twice the US average per capita. I probably would have sprained my liver.